A.D. 

 1527. 



Benefite to 

 England. 



Objection. 



Answere. 



A true 

 opinion. 



A voyage of 

 discovery by 

 the Pole. M. 

 Thome and 

 M. Eliot dis- 

 coverers of 

 Newfound 

 land. 



The cause 

 why the West 

 Indies were 

 not ours: 

 which also 

 Sebastian 

 Cabot writeth 

 in an Epistle 

 to Baptista 

 Ramusius. 



THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



profitable to our commodities of cloth, then these 

 Spiceries to the Emperour, and king of Portingal. 



But it is a generall opinion of all Cosmographers, that 

 passing the seventh clime, the sea is all ice, and the colde 

 so much that none can suffer it. And hitherto they had 

 all the like opinion, that under the line Equinoctiall for 

 much heate the land was unhabitable. 



Yet since (by experience is proved) no land so much 

 habitable nor more temperate. And to conclude, I thinke 

 the same should be found under the North, if it were 

 experimented. For as all judge, Nihil fit vacuum in 

 rerum natura : So I judge, there is no land unhabitable, 

 nor Sea innavigable. If I should write the reason that 

 presenteth this unto me, I should be too prolixe, and it 

 seemeth not requisite for this present matter. God 

 knoweth that though by it I should have no great 

 interest, yet I have had and still have no litle mind 

 of this businesse : So that if I had facultie to my will, it 

 should be the first thing that I woulde understand, even 

 to attempt, if our Seas Northward be navigable to the 

 Pole, or no. I reason, that as some sickenesses are heredi- 

 tarious, and come from the father to the sonne, so this 

 inclination or desire of this discoverie I inherited of my 

 father, which with another marchant of Bristow named 

 Hugh Eliot, were the discoverers of the New found 

 lands, of the which there is no doubt, (as nowe plainely 

 appeareth) if the mariners would then have bene ruled, 

 and followed their Pilots minde, the lands of the West 

 Indies (from whence all the gold commeth) had bene 

 ours. For all is one coast, as by the Carde appeareth, and 

 is aforesayd. 



Also in this Carde by the coastes where you see C. 

 your Lordship shall understand it is set for Cape or head- 

 land, where I. for Hand, where P. for Port, where R. for 

 River. Also in all this little Carde I thinke nothing be 

 erred touching the situation of the land, save onely in 

 these Hands of Spicerie : which, for that (as afore is 

 sayd) every one setteth them after his minde, there can be 



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